In August, ProPublica's Abrahm Lustgarten trekked out across Colorado and Wyoming to report on and photograph the wave of natural gas drilling sweeping across the western states of the U.S. Watch the story playing out in the Pinedale Anticline, in Sublette County, Wyo.

The promise of abundant natural gas is colliding with fears about water contamination.

The Story So Far

The country’s push to find clean domestic energy has zeroed in on natural gas, but cases of water contamination have raised serious questions about the primary drilling method being used. Vast deposits of natural gas, large enough to supply the country for decades, have brought a drilling boom stretching across 31 states. The drilling technique being used, called hydraulic fracturing, shoots water, sand and toxic chemicals into the ground to break up rock and release the gas.

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